Best In Warangal
Best In Warangal — your local guide to food, culture and the city we call home.
The Sammakka Saralamma Jatara at Medaram is one of the largest tribal gatherings on earth, and the tri-city is its natural staging ground.
The Sammakka Saralamma Jatara at Medaram is one of the largest tribal gatherings on earth, drawing crowds counted in the millions, and the Warangal tri-city is its natural staging ground. Held once every two years in the forest of the Mulugu region, it honours the tribal goddesses Sammakka and Saralamma and their legend of resistance.
The scale is genuinely hard to picture until you see it. For a few days the forest clearing at Medaram becomes one of the most densely populated places in the country, with devotees arriving from across Telangana and neighbouring states. Warangal becomes the base for transport, supplies and stay for a huge share of them.
The central ritual is the offering of bangaram, jaggery offered to the goddesses in quantities matched symbolically to the devotee's own weight. Around that core run vast temporary camps, bazaars and the ceaseless movement of pilgrims. Special transport from Warangal and across the state runs heavily during the festival days.
Plan transport and stay far ahead, because the demand during the jatara overwhelms everything nearby. Travel light and in a group, since the crowds are immense and getting separated is easy. Keep emergency contacts and a meeting point agreed in advance, a simple precaution that matters enormously in a crowd this size. For anyone in the region when it falls, the Medaram jatara is a once-in-a-lifetime sight, but it rewards the prepared and punishes the casual.
